Coronavirus

[teamsaint]

Honestly, I’m pretty handy with mental arithmatic( impossible not to be when you are a grocer’s son) but I have lost track of the daily figures, and what they are including , or excluding. But the numbers look terrible.
I sincerely hope we learn some much needed lessons about our priorities.

But national leadership is needed, and we have almost none.

[johnb]

888 more deaths - a rising plateau, or at least a rather bumpy one?

It is very difficult to see what is happening when looking at a singles day's figures. The daily increases represent reported deaths that have occurred over the previous week or two, though mostly over the previous three days. Administrative delays around the weekends/Easter mean that weekly phasing of the figures is markedly distorted, with dips on Sunday/Monday which are then compensated for on the following days.

This is a chart I have cobbled together showing the daily reported increases in the number of deaths, with Thursday, Friday and Saturday's figures shown in a different colour as a reference.



Edit: updated

[LHC]

This is (yet) another 'what's the real story'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/swab-tester-uk-germany-south-korea

The issue of testing isn't quite as simple as many assume, and as the comments highlight, but even so something ain't right here - again.

I’ve seen some suggestions elsewhere that some of these problems are being caused by the centralized structure of Public Health England, and its reluctance to relinquish any degree of control, even though it is failing to meet its targets for testing. For example, at the beginning of this crisis many University and private labs offered to make their facilities available for testing, but I understand hardly any are being used.

[johnb]

The only useful, consistently reliable data seems to be the number of Covid-19 hospital beds and that shows a peak around the 11th April followed by a gradual day by day decrease - though there are variations across the country. Hopefully we will see that decrease reflected in a reduced daily death count in the coming days/weeks.

[eighthobstruction]

....just saw someone on Facebook page say : just for once lets give the NHS and Care Worker a bonus several times their annual wage....and give Bankers and CEO's a nice lovely shiney badge....

[johnb]

....just saw someone on Facebook page say : just for once lets give the NHS and Care Worker a bonus several times their annual wage....and give Bankers and CEO's a nice lovely shiney badge....

As John Crace wrote in The Guardian:

A badge. A sodding badge. Even the writers of the TV series The Thick of It wouldn’t have dared come up with something as crass as this. Especially as it was a badge that had already been launched a year previously to the general indifference of everyone in the care home sector.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/15/hannocks-shiny-badge-emblem-of-a-scamper-into-tigger-mode

[oddoneout]

Another pithy comment on the badge by one of the G cartoonists, as a detail to another point

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2020/apr/16/steve-bell-ministry-coronavirus-truth-cartoon

[Bella Kemp]

I hate to be cynical, but might it be supposed that when Mr Trump urges everybody back to work and ignore the virus, he has simply calculated that the U.S can easily lose tens of thousands more of their elderly population without damaging the economy? Indeed, his wicked inner circle may have concluded that it would do the country good to rid itself of all those dependent on pensions and no longer working. He seems a truly satanic figure.

[MrGongGong]

As John Crace wrote in The Guardian:



https://www.theguardian.com/politics...to-tigger-mode

Sadly (IMV) the media and most of the public are far too polite to call these idiots out. They will get away with it and not be held to any account at all.
A bit of robust language and refusal to go along with the whole "protocol" and "respect" nonsense when they appear on TV and radio would go down well. Though, as with John Lydon's "disappearance" from the BBC for many years after he spoke out against Jimmy Saville anyone rocking the boat is likely to be "erased" for a long time.

[LMcD]

I hate to be cynical, but might it be supposed that when Mr Trump urges everybody back to work and ignore the virus, he has simply calculated that the U.S can easily lose tens of thousands more of their elderly population without damaging the economy? Indeed, his wicked inner circle may have concluded that it would do the country good to rid itself of all those dependent on pensions and no longer working. He seems a truly satanic figure.

What makes somebody at BBC News think that we're so interested in Donald Trump's daily waffle-rants that 'we need to go straight to the White House' the minute he appears? It's not as if we're going to take his advice or follow his lead, is it? All I want to do is watch 'The Papers' and then head for bed.

[jayne lee wilson]

As John Crace wrote in The Guardian:



https://www.theguardian.com/politics...to-tigger-mode

Yes, from the same Crace column, bleakly, cruelly hilarious.......

"the producers were withholding the £1m top prize because they suspected cheating had taken place as there had been a lot of background coughing during the recording of the show"

and .....

Gotta find the humour in all this somewhere, right?

***
Anyone else see the latest Trump Live! around 2230 on the News channels last night? I've seen too many of these already and knew what to expect; but it still shocked me, as he soared effortlessly on the blackened, ragged wings of self-promotional pettiness to new depths of boast, bluster and accusatory insult...

[LMcD]

I was going to suggest that Captain Tom be promoted, but then I remembered what happened to another Major Tom!
I actually switched to Sky News at 2230 last night, but the ratio of advertisements to programme content proved too much.

[Pulcinella]

I was going to suggest that Captain Tom be promoted, but then I remembered what happened to another Major Tom!
I actually switched to Sky News at 2230 last night, but the ratio of advertisements to programme content proved too much.

Stick with things digital/online: that way, you can choose for yourself which articles and items you want to follow (and when!).

[LMcD]

Stick with things digital/online: that way, you can choose for yourself which articles and items you want to follow (and when!).

Just caught up with 'The Papers' (broadcast at 2330) on iPlayer. Mercifully, Trump didn't get a mention (or should that be a 'shout-out'?)

[jayne lee wilson]

In fact BBC News stuck with Trump last night longer than Sky (who switched to their own Press Preview)...I think the BBC were as stunned as I was.... but I'm not sorry I saw it..... it was some spectacle...

Substantial excerpts from it here..... pretty hardcore....

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/18/donald-trump-press-briefing-rally-campaign-media

And what superhero is waiting, fresh faced and eager, for his chance to overthrow all this?

...Joe Bidennnnnzzzzz